A Letter from Your Green Business Network Director

The dawn of a new year grants us an opportunity to take stock. In the quiet, amber-hued light of morning, we reflect on both the value of our accomplishments and the impact of our shortcomings. Did we do what we set out to do? As businesspeople, as sustainability leaders, as humans—what did we get right? And what did we get wrong?

And as we sit with these considerations during what is yesterday’s tomorrow, we might realize that now is the time to envision a future we can one day look back on and be proud of.  And so let us soften our gaze and set our sights on some distant horizon. And as we imagine our individual and collective impacts on our world—we might remember that these impacts are ripples. Ripples that travel through the next 12 months. Ripples that ebb and flow into and beyond 2029. 2062, 2291. The decisions we make today—especially those that are climate-related—will continue to move through the infinite ocean of time one thousand years from now. One hundred thousand years from now.

So, you might ask yourself, what responsibility do I have to the future? If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve answered this question already.  You’re likely onto the next question: how do I live today so that others might live tomorrow—and the tomorrow after tomorrow, and so on, ad infinitum? The answer is perhaps easier to come by than its implementation. But, as leaders in the green business community, you’re in a unique position. In many cases, you’re already making a difference. You’re cutting emissions, whether regulations tell you to or not.  You’re making your supply chains more ethical because it’s the right thing to do. You’re switching to renewable energy. You’re eliminating single-use plastics. You’re creating products that last for generations. You’re net zero, waste-free, and socially responsible. But perhaps what’s more important than all the water you’re not wasting and all the energy you’re not misusing and all the resources you’re not squandering is all the behaviors you are modeling.

Every day, I speak with small business owners who are trying to do the right thing, and it inspires me to do the work we do at the Green Business Network (GBN).  And socially and environmentally responsible small businesses should be even more widely congratulated for the work they do to curb a warming climate. But, what’s even more powerful than the specific measures being taken by green business owners is the fact that these innovative leaders are taking these measures at all—and doing so proudly and with an inclination to celebrate how these actions can be economically viable as well as just.

Commerce and capitalism, at their core, are not enemies of a healthy planet. Greedy mega-corporations, petroleum companies, and unchecked industrialization are. Businesses like those in GBN—small, local, independent, and green—are a shimmering example of what business can and should look like. It’s simple, really: the world as we know it does not survive if humanity’s latest addiction to more, bigger, and faster is not displaced—quickly and permanently—with a nuanced and profound appreciation for small, ethical, and deliberate. The future, after all, is long—almost infinitely so, if we’re lucky—and it will take patience and cooperation to ensure that we do right by our descendants.

Earlier this month, I spoke with the Founder of Seventh Generation—a GBN alum—and was reminded of the Iroquois’ wise inclination to make all decisions by first considering how those decisions might impact people and planet in seven generations’ time. I humbly ask all businesses and all consumers to weave this thinking into their own decision-making. Your lives will be richer for it.  Plus, picture it this way: you’re giving humans a thousand years from now a fighting chance. A chance to make art, to raise families, and to maybe even live out their own pie-in-the-sky dreams of starting their own business one day.